Brilliant and touching

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

This movie received terrible reviews from the audience, but it is not that bad. Its main problems are too many sub-plots and a silly open ending. Apart from that, it is a classic "coming of age" tale. Main character Douglas loves rock'n'roll and joins a band as drum player. The band leader is handsome Eugene, who cannot sing as "soulfully" as Douglas. Therefore, Douglas plans to replace Eugene as front man. Trouble ensues, as it always does and dreams are crushed....The bitter twist of the story is that we follow Douglas's sister narration and we know from the start that his band is not bound for glory. Maybe this was also what put off the audience: is there a point following the story of a rock band that won't make it?Considering they must be the majority, I guess there is. Besides, the music is good and you can spend a couple of hours feeling nostalgic for a bygone era.As already mentioned, too many characters mean that none is developed properly (Douglas's girlfriend Grace and her family, including her nutty sister; Douglas's dad Pat and his cancer, etc...). Even Douglas and Eugene, the two closest to a lead role are very sketchy characters. Pat is played by Gandolfini, who early in the movies delivers one of the best one-liner ever: while Douglas gushes about Twilight Zone and "Reality not being what it looks like", the tired man answers "Reality is too much what it looks like".

As with most filmmakers who work in themes, you should watch this to see Chase's perspective on the material, not for the story itself. Its seemingly formless structure will throw off some viewers, but it's very much in line with his body of work, being less about the music and the era and more about the effects of the passage of time, specifically the tug of the past on the present and the evolution of character (or not) as the years go by. It's an autobiographical elaboration on the themes in the dark and sad final seasons of the Sopranos, though it does have plenty of the usual witty Chase touches as well, like the kids dancing away the JFK retrospective. There's a pervasive sense of nostalgia because the setting feels realistic, neither idealistic like a Spielberg/Lucas movie nor revisionist like the progressive Pleasantville-type movies whose intention is to show us all how the past wasn't as enlightened as today. The downside is that it's such a well-covered period and milieu (for my generation The Wonder Years is the reference point) that it's hard to find something original to say. But go in with the understanding that it's more complex than it appears and it'll give you plenty to chew on afterward. At one point the lead and his girlfriend are watching Blow-Up and he comments on how strange it is there's no music to tell you when someone's going to get killed, and she replies that the sound of the wind in the trees is the music, which sums up this movie pretty well.

This movie is basically simple with no real need for a wordy script. It is character driven and full of great mid-60's music. Douglas(John Magaro)is of slight build, shy, lacking a clear complexion...but has that same dream that most of his peers share...be a rock musician. Douglas and three of his New Jersey high-school friends form a band based on the music of The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan and The Beatles. Doug plays drums and sings background vocals and the band tries to tackle the major hit tunes of 1963-64. Just like the professional bands they admire...there is grumbling of who should be the front man and lead vocalist. James Gandolfini is flawless as the father that has no use for or belief in rock 'n' roll music. When Douglas takes over lead vocals, the nameless band starts to progress enough to land an audition for a recording deal. Not all members of the band feel they are ready yet. A very good soundtrack featuring music by The Rolling Stones, Bo Diddley, The Moody Blues, The Rascals, Bob Dylan and of course The Beatles. Magaro and other band member Jack Huston take some fine turns at the mike. Other cast members: Bella Heathcote, Will Brill, Gregory Peri, Christopher McDonald and Brad Garrett. If you have a fondness for the music of the period, the movie can take over a more relevant meaning,

David Chase's Not Fade Away is an exercise in nostalgia in a competent order, meaning that those who enjoy or, above all, relate to the events in the film will appreciate it the most. I'm stuck in the position where I often find my self; on the corner of admiration and disappointment.Stylistically, David Chase (TV's The Soprano's) and cinematographer Eigil Bryld (Netflix's own TV series House of Cards) couldn't have made a more bleeding-gums representation of the 1960's if they tried. It looks marvelous in all its polished, minimalist glory. Thematically and applicably, there should've been so much more of a story to tell about a garage band that never made it despite determination to "not fade away." For this reason, the film can be viewed as one where talents embrace culture, chew scenery, and nothing more.The story concerns Douglas (John Magaro), a young man in the 1960's during a time of The Vietnam War and inevitable social change. Family values and daintiness are becoming more lenient, and views on the war divide parents, who sat back and formed opinions on it, and teenagers who had to fight it. Douglas decides to round up a few pals and start a garage band with intent to "make it big" like the iconic Beatles and Rolling Stones. Faced with loud opposition from his demanding bigot of a father (James Gandolfini) and attachment to his girlfriend (Meg Guzulescu), Douglas must now keep a band together without alienating those close to him.This is a story that through heatbreak, aspirations, and prolific failures could've made a gripping film and possibly an emotional one. The downside is through Chase's direction does the film feel sterile and ill-equipped. He doesn't seem to possess any form of relation or personal resonance with his characters, and this awkward coldness halts the film's ability to allow its audience to admire if even differentiate the teenagers the sixties was known to birth.What we are left with, predominately, is an egg with a firm, ambitious, beautifully crisp shell, but sub-par, underwhelming contents. "Style over substance" would seem to be an appropriate term, but I hesitate to even call it that seeing as social order, parental discrepancies, and culture shock - all easy items to exclude or nudge out of bounds - are touched on and explored considerably. One of the tensest scenes, and arguably the best, is when Douglas is at dinner with many of his relatives, remaining silent while they discuss emerging culture and minorities in a wonderfully ethnocentric way. Douglas is ostracized and belittled for his optimism on his garage band project and his long, "hippie" hair before telling off his father and exiting the room.Chase definitely understands complex changes of norms and societal disconnect between parents and youths. However, his apparent lack of interest in his characters, giving them a shocking lack of depth and personality, undermines the power Not Fade Away could've head if it resonated with its target audience (those now in their forties or fifties). Yet, its characters are as vacant as clip-art pictures of teenagers from the time period. There's a powerful, life-affirming, deeply involving story in the material Not Fade Away provides and I anxiously await its telling by a director with more of an attitude and opinion on the subject.Starring: John Magaro, Meg Guzulescu, and James Gandolfini. Directed by: David Chase.